


have fun, stay safe

by familiar



Category: Check Please! (Webcomic)
Genre: Frottage, M/M, NHL Awards, Parenthood, Past Eric "Bitty" Bittle/Jack Zimmermann, Post-Break Up, Public Blow Jobs, Semi-Public Sex, and also adult men who are parents who are also basically children
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2020-08-13
Updated: 2020-08-13
Packaged: 2021-03-06 06:35:00
Rating: Explicit
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 6,078
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/25738906
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/familiar/pseuds/familiar
Summary: Jack had not even gotten his dick out when Kent realized: I will think all the fun out of this.
Relationships: Kent "Parse" Parson/Jack Zimmermann
Comments: 23
Kudos: 71
Collections: Check Please Heartbreak Fest 2020





	have fun, stay safe

**Author's Note:**

  * For [IprotectKennyP (dauntperplexity)](https://archiveofourown.org/users/dauntperplexity/gifts).



> for IprotectKennyP, in response to the prompt: "Zimbits breaks up, Jack turns to Kent to try and fix his past relationship with him because he realizes it's wrong place, wrong time, wrong time, wrong time. But he wants to get it right."
> 
> this is a companion fic to the story I wrote for HBF 2017, [stone fruits in season](https://archiveofourown.org/works/11720286) \-- the prompt was so close to the inevitable endgame jackparse that followed, it seemed only appropriate. This fic, however, should stand on its own; no need to read stone fruits (unless, I suppose, you're curious.) cannot stress enough my thanks to the mods for putting together an amazing event and hooking me up with a great prompt. also thanks to [Tomato](https://archiveofourown.org/users/tomato_greens/) for beta reading forever.

The bars at these things are hives of faces, players and execs and the smattering of actual celebrities who care about hockey at all—which are few—and the media. Kent has the best relationship with the latter. He doesn’t need to drink to be interesting, but he gets a vodka-soda, squeeze of lime, tips with a twenty because he can and because it’s not like he’s paying for a room. They do this fucking thing in Vegas.

It would be easy to consider a run-in with someone you don’t want to see “unfair,” but Kent long ago learned that fairness in hockey is like luck, an unquantifiable non-concept that only applies until it doesn’t. Running into Jack by the bar isn’t a coincidence, because Jack is on the shortlist for the Masterton. Jack is considered for it every year, for what seems like obvious reasons. Has he ever actually won it? Kent presumes Jack would prefer not to be asked. Jack was out with a concussion for part of the season, but he is not the only one, and it is still considered nothing short of miraculous that he is even playing any hockey at all.

Because it’s odder not to just quickly say hello, Kent does.

Instead of saying hello back and sauntering away, Jack decides to tell Kent, “I’m getting divorced.”

“Sorry. That sucks.” Hundreds of people—hockey people, _their people_ —are unwitting witnesses to a gross act of irresponsibility on Kent’s part: after an awkward silence, inhaling half of that vodka-soda, he finds the courage to say, “Well, you know I’m around if you need to, I dunno, talk about it.”

Jack stands there, his arms hanging by his side.

So Kent searches the topography of face for any slight shift in demeanor. It’s been a long time since he’s really seen Jack _do_ facial expressions. None appear to be forthcoming.

“Thanks.” Jack waves— _he waves_ , and not like to an old friend just spotted across the way, but like royalty from the terrace off the drawing room, to a crowd of thousands. A little half-turn of the hand, expressionless, nodding.

Kent is left with a half-empty drink—what was that? What _was_ that?

* * *

Jack comes back after the ceremony, during which Kent has duly collected his Art Ross, and asks, “Can I blow you?”

“What are you fucking doing?” Kent hisses. “Are you off your meds?”

“What meds?”

Unbelievable. “I’m serious. There are shitloads of people here.”

Jack shrugs. “Not around the corner.” He doesn’t appear to be drunk. In fact, he doesn’t appear to be thinking or feeling anything. Jack was never good enough at pretending to keep their teenage romp much of a secret: his parents knew, clearly, and still the rumors bred by their closeness are laced into the recaps whenever they play each other. If they’re seen speaking here, for the second time in one evening, someone’s tongue will start to wag. Perhaps Jack has plausible cover in the form of his husband and child, but supposing that’s over—well, he’s still wearing the ring, Kent sees. And yet Bittle is nowhere to be found. That’s the real testament to Jack’s profound inability to sustain a clandestine romance: one season in the league and he had to start kissing his boyfriend at center ice. What’s a hallway blowjob after all that? Probably nothing, not that Kent would know.

“You look good,” Jack adds.

The dying embers of Kent’s heart leap alive again, consuming all the oxygen in his lungs, leaving him breathless, and all the oxygen in his brain, making him stupid. That’s why he says, “Sure,” and agrees to meet up again in twenty minutes. But, he thinks to himself as he wobbles from an SB Nation interview to the cordoned-off hallway down which Jack has proposed he do the damn thing, maybe Jack’s learned something about blow jobs since he was eighteen. Maybe he’s learned what to do with his teeth, maybe Bittle’s taught him something about it.

Then again, Kent thinks to himself, _then again_ , maybe not. They’re getting divorced, right? He thinks of his mother. He thinks of his teammates. He thinks of his sister. No one leaves a relationship with good sex. Sex is the glue.

Either way, against his best instincts, Kent will find out.

Amidst the razzmatazz of Vegas, Mandalay Bay could be considered subdued. They have a fucking beach, Kent reminds himself, they have a fucking aquarium. Okay, he tells himself, but you’re not getting sucked off in the shark reef. If this shit backfires, at least it’s not going to ruin anything specific for him, just corporate-classy bland decor. Thank god they moved Acescon to the events center. At least this shit isn’t going to, like, ruin clowns for him, or whatever. Gondolas or Rome or something. At least it’s not going to create bad associations with New York; he still has to go there to visit his sister. He invited her this year, and again she didn’t want to come: “I hate Las Vegas,” she said. “I’m not going to get dressed up to watch some comedian do forced hockey jokes about your 800 boring, _boring_ coworkers.”

“Oh, they don’t invite all 800,” Kent had told her, as if perhaps it would be convincing. Because it wasn’t, he’s here alone. The first American boy to win the Art Ross _twice_. You’ll be thirty-six next month, he thinks to himself, in two weeks, holy shit. He has not, frankly, felt like a boy since the last foggy June he was blown by Jack Zimmermann.

It truly is some kind of metaphor that four minutes from the open-bar fuckfest, there’s a completely empty hallway, half the lights on, a few tables draped in cloth and plastic sacks of recycling, probably.

Back against the wall, jacket on the floor, Jack is texting, or looking at his phone, anyway. He was always good at finding these deserted places to do depraved things.

* * *

Not knowing how late he’d be out, Kent had paid his neighbor to feed the cat. Because the cat is spoiled, he comes to the door when he hears Kent’s key, and begins whining as soon as Kent and Jack are inside.

“This is my boyfriend.” Kent scoops the cat into his arms. “His name is Purrs—well, it’s Kent Purrson, Junior—Purrs.”

“He’s huge. Is that normal?”

“Yes.” From anyone else, any other time, Kent would take that like the insult it so very clearly is, but he’s still floating through this moment; it’s all much too surreal. “He’s a Maine Coon. They’re big.”

Jack has nothing to say to that, so Kent adds, “I like big things.”

Well, Jack is a big thing himself—not the tallest on the ice, but tall enough. Even through his jacket, Kent can see every back and shoulder and arm muscle. Big ass, big thighs—waspish waist, in comparison, all the better for Kent to wrap his arms around it. Cops a feel—Jack says, “Hey,” quietly, grabbing Kent by the wrists.

“You want a drink?” No game, Parser, Kent thinks to himself, you had fifteen, twenty years to figure out how to do this. But it doesn’t seem to matter—Jack kisses him: his neck, his jaw.

Jack comes up for air and he asks, “Where’s the bedroom?”

“Which one?”

“Ha ha,” Jack says, because he doesn’t laugh at things, really, in Kent’s experience.

The cat is everywhere, of course, rubbing against their entwined legs, complaining, impatient.

“He always do that?”

“Well.” Kent takes a breath, wipes his lips, even though Jack hasn’t gone anywhere near them yet. “I’ve never brought anyone back before, so—no.”

“Never?”

“Roadies,” like that’s sufficient, like that should cover things. “You?”

“Bedroom,” Jack insists, and Kent wonders—if Jack were going to cheat, would he do it on a roadie? Would he do such a thing? He said he was getting divorced, but that means he’s not yet. He’s _still_ wearing a wedding ring, even now that they’re tripping into the bedroom, and Kent would love to ask him to take it off. From the outside it’s nothing fancy, just a gold band, but Kent can feel it everywhere while they make out against the door he’s just slammed shut.

The cat’s not happy—he starts swiping at their ankles from under the threshold.

“Shit,” Jack hisses. “Cat. Why.”

“He’s looking out for me.”

“Yeah, Parse? You think so?”

“Well, that or he wants in.” Jack blinks his big, sad eyes. “And he’s not the only one.” Pause. “Who wants in?” Kent sighs. “Lemme, um.” He can’t even say it, just unbuttons the fly on Jack’s pants and slips his hand down into—jeez, some tight goddamn briefs. They barely cover his ass.

Jack seems into it—he arches his back, anyway.

“How’d Bittle give it to you?” Kent asks.

Jack seizes one of his hands, nearly crushes it. “Don’t bring him into it.”

So, fine. “Or you could, um—give it to me?”

The thing is, this is not good sex. Kent thinks it could be, if they had ever managed to get there. If they’d kept going from age 18, learning each other’s bodies, reading hitched breaths and minute weight shifts like cues. But they didn’t have that, that didn’t happen. Instead, Jack got there with someone else.

Kent never got there.

He didn’t saunter into the Q thinking it was going to be easy. And it wasn’t, but, this is the penthouse, after all. He got the Calder, didn’t he? Enough Cup rings to make a rattle when he shakes them in his hand. Not that he does that, he stashes them in a bank vault in Syracuse, but that’s not the point.

It’s been twenty years since they’ve done this, Kent thinks, sliding out of his dress shoes, and pulling off his socks. Since then he’s been with a handful of guys; one for each ring, he realizes. Each time it was dark, and it was over very quickly. For a moment, Kent’s hand lingers on the switch, the one on his side of the bed, for the overhead light—the notion that it’s his side somehow is ridiculous. They’re both his side. It’s all his bed.

“Remember trying to do this in a twin?” Kent pulls his hand away. He’s got nothing to hide.

“I don’t think about it much.” There’s a beat before Jack adds, “That time.”

“The guest room had that queen. I never saw a bed so big before, I mean, that wasn’t in a hotel room at some camp or, or some roadie.” Kent is deeply aware that Purrs is darkening his doorstep; it’s unmistakable, that silhouette where the hallway light doesn’t shine on the polished concrete.

Jack sits heavily on the bed, finally shrugging from his suit jacket. He folds it neatly. In an instant, Kent imagines a thousand histories: the chartered flights he’s worn it on, the old teammates’ weddings he’s packed it for. Kent gets a weird vision of Bittle ordering it for him, because Jack’s parents both had personal shoppers, and few hockey players have off-the-rack bodies.

Kent exclusively wears shirts his sister designs for him. It’s rare that he treats them with anything other than the utmost care. It’s just the sight of Jack’s body after so many years: Kent loses his patience. He kicks off his pants and hops on. He licks Jack’s face so hard he feels stubble, and like most losers, Jack is closely shaved. Kent wants to say so many things: no man compares to you. No one gets me like you did. Your tits are the platonic ideal of tits—which they are, to Kent’s delight, cartoonishly obscene pecs with stick-out nipples that harden on his tongue. Jack is as limp as a rag doll until Kent’s teeth graze over one.

It’s soft shock: “Oh.” Jack buries his nose in Kent’s hair. “I can’t give it or get it. It’s too soon.”

“After eating?”

Jack makes a face that’s half-pain, full _Parse, you fucking idiot_. But then he shakes his head and says, “That too.” He asks, “Do you have a preference?”

Difficult not to be touched that Jack cares. They never did it; Kent has since done it, like, twice. For some asinine reason he imagines Jack is now an expert, being married and all. And to a non-hockey player! Kent has met him—Bittle. He’s seen him at other NHL things, a tense wedding or two. They have had just one deeply awkward conversation. He probably won’t be seeing Bittle anymore, he realizes. For whatever reason, Kent’s presumptions, when he’s considered them, have defaulted to Jack and Bittle having dreamy face-to-face missionary-style sex, like the kind he used to imagine when he let himself imagine sex at all. It’s like, knees over shoulders, and every few thrusts the top can strain forward to bestow some slurpy kisses. Like, that’s gay sex, probably, when you’re married to someone. What idea about this could Kent possibly have? He’s been fucked right into the comforter on a hotel bed—in Winnipeg, of all places!—by some nobody he didn’t bother to text the next time he was in Winnipeg. It was fine. He wouldn’t call that a preference.

He imagines it’s best to do it with someone he really cares about.

He’s never had the opportunity.

“Not really,” Kent says. “I just want you.”

“You do?”

“Yeah. It’s not a secret, right? Or not a secret from you—you know.”

“How would I know?”

“Jack.” Kent’s dick is seeping all his let’s-go half-baked desire onto Jack’s thigh. He grabs it, strokes it—his dick, not Jack’s thigh—as if to make some kind of point. He tries not to think of that sloppy blow job, the result of which Jack swallowed without complaint, or even so much as suggesting Kent return the favor. He’s shocked he’s so hard again; best not to blow it, literally and figuratively, by reliving a crazy moment he’ll have plenty of time to jerk off to later, after Jack had gone back to—Montreal? New Orleans? Or wherever he lives now. “Like, you’ve gotta have _some_ idea? Why else would you—in a _hallway_ —with _me_? Of all people?”

“I told you, you looked good.” This must be genuine, because when Kent drops a hand to the front of Jack’s Y-fronts, he feels the damp spot.

“What about me looked good?” Kent manages, with his multimillion-dollar hands, to fish Jack’s dick out from the waistband of his briefs without it escaping through the fly. He gives it a squeeze.

“I dunno,” says Jack. “Everything.”

“The whole package?” Kent squeezes again.

Jack shuts his eyes. “Yeah,” he says. He lifts his leg enough for Kent to get the underwear all the way off of him. He tosses them, not caring where they go; they end up at the foot of the bed. “Fill out a suit nice,” Jack mumbles.

“Oh, I do? Me?” Kent takes it, finally: a handful of Jack’s ass. It was big in juniors and it’s big now, yielding enough to properly grope. “You wanna talk about filling shit out? Look at you, Zimms.”

“ _Kenny_.” He just breathes it, like they’re still kids, like the only thing that’s changed is they have hair on their stomachs (Jack has it on his chest, like an adult would, like he’s a _man_ of all things) and can just hook up in an honest-to-god real bed and don’t have to dry-hump in the backseat of Jack’s 2008 fucking Toyota Yaris. Jack also has hair that trails from the front up into the crack of his ass; it meets the tips of Kent’s fingers as he grows bolder and helps himself to more.

Finally, Jack kisses him. With Kent’s fingers skirting his cleft, threatening to pull his ass apart, Jack tucks his fingers into the hair at the crown of Kent’s head and brings Kent’s face to his, and angles their lips together. It’s a split second, no tongue.

Kent breaks it. He lets go of Jack’s ass. He grinds against Jack’s hip, slurring precome there, and wonders if there’s some way to get off that would let him survey Jack’s entire body—because, he tries to tell himself, this isn’t happening again. This is sad-horny breakup sex Jack is using to rebound from whatever happened with Bittle. Kent’s sure he won’t get the story. Palms to shoulders, Kent squares Jack into the mattress. He doesn’t say anything, but hoists himself up. Hooks a knee over, clamps it against Jack’s ass. Jack stares up. He used to wear his hair like an idiot, but it framed his face in such a flattering way. Now it’s just cropped like every guy’s hair is. How sad, how disappointing.

Jack reaches up, smooths his fingers over Kent’s bangs. Says Kent’s name—well, not his name, not even his nickname. “Kenny,” that’s what Jack defaults to when they’re naked. When he says it he sounds like he’s shivering. It’s what his mom and sister call him, too. They don’t shiver when they say it. They say it like they don’t even know they’re saying it. When Jack says it, it makes Kent’s dick throb. He grabs it—his dick. It’s trembling in his hand.

“Look at you.” That’s what he’s doing, taking in every inch of that fucking body. They must have invented the word “body” for Jack’s body. Kent would jerk himself so hard he’d defile Jack’s tits—he must do presses like a crazy person. No one’s got tits like Jack. If Kent’s face were near them he’d flick his tongue against one and then suck it like Jack sucked his cock before, not to give pleasure but just to fill his mouth with something big and hard and full, rigid against his tongue. Jack’s abs—okay, Kent knows his are _technically_ better, he eats buckets of protein for that shit. Core strength is a virtue in hockey, but abs are all surface. People tell Kent he’s all surface, so why not embody it? The best part of having Jack like this isn’t even drinking in his bulk or getting lost in his creepy blue stare, a gaze that probably makes rookies doubt themselves. No, the best part is that Jack just relents? He just lets himself be scaled, lets Kent sit on him.

“Can you imagine how good we look together?” Kent asks. “This is like, actual porn.”

Jack is biting one of his knuckles; his other hand is curled against the bed. He does not seem to be reaching to get himself off.

So Kent just—well, he’s never been in this position before, but he’s thought about it—again, not _with_ anyone, just, the idea of it? He scoots up Jack’s thighs and takes him in hand, too.

Kent strokes—

Jack says, “Yeah,” the way people do in Kent’s imagination when they’re going to lose it soon.

“Yeah, you like this?” Kent likes it—he’s, yes, going to come soon.

“Yeah,” says Jack; it’s apparently all he can say because he repeats it, “Yeah yeah yeah,” until he finally thrusts up into Kent’s hand, against Kent’s dick, and when he does come it helps produce the strokes Kent needs to get himself off, too.

* * *

The most surreal morning of Kent’s life—and given his career, he’s had several of them—finds him waking up with his nose in Jack’s shoulder, his knee between Jack’s legs, and his left hand pressed against Jack’s breast bone.

The cat is moaning and slamming his side into the bedroom door, and if that weren’t enough to get Kent up early (he’s not used to being shut out, old Purrs—that’s one thing they have in common) it appears he forgot to put the shades down. His window is west-facing but that hardly matters many feet up, with floor-to-ceiling windows.

“Zimms,” he says quietly, “I’m going to feed the cat.”

Jack mumbles. He’s still asleep, or not ready to pretend he’s not asleep.

Purrs is whining, whining.

At least Kent has a reason to get out of bed.

* * *

Jack is fully awake after the cat has been entertained, fed, groomed—slouching against the pillows gathered before the headboard, and reading something on his phone. Kent dares not ask what. He dares not mention the possibility of a life outside of his condo this morning. Most mornings, he’d be at the gym already. _His_ phone is still in his pants pocket. His pants are bunched on the floor, by the foot of the bed. It’s a small grace that he’d disabled all notifications, alarms included, before heading out last night. It’s highly likely that dozens of people now want his attention.

So long as Jack is here, Kent will ignore them.

He doesn’t know what to say, is the thing. Is Jack waiting for him to say something? Is he waiting—why hasn’t he left?

“I fed the cat.”

“Yes?” Jack looks up, shrugs. “What does she eat?”

“He eats these raw pellets. Rabbit and venison. You hungry? I can go get some.”

“No thank you. Good source of protein, though, eh?”

“Oh, well. I guess?” Kent decides, at this point, to shut the door. What if they—he can only hope, but it’s just, Jack clearly doesn’t want the cat in the room with them. “The vet recommends them, you know, she says they’re good for elderly cats.”

“He doesn’t seem so elderly.”

“Yeah. I mean, he’s 14, that’s old for a cat. A Maine Coon, anyway.”

“Did you get him as a kitten?”

“He was young, not a baby kitten—not so little. A year, I guess?” Kent settles onto the edge of the bed.

“You always liked cats.”

“I don’t know if I like them, but they were always around? So it seemed like—I don’t know, it must be like you and hockey, I guess, just hard to shake the thing you were always exposed to.”

“Maybe.” Jack puts his phone on the nightstand. “Maybe. I suppose.”

“If I hadn’t found hockey I might’ve ended up a concert pianist, or something.”

“Ha ha. I don’t think so—you can’t carry a tune, Parse.”

“You don’t have to carry one to play piano! I’ve got good hands, Zimms, everyone tells me so.”

“Uh huh.” The brief curl of a fond smile develops. “How’s your mom? She still playing piano?”

“She’s a bitch, she’s fine. She still teaches lessons, yeah. How’s your parents?”

Just like that, the smile evaporates. “Fine.” It’s terse. “I’m, eugh, avoiding them, actually. It’s like.” Jack pauses. “They love Bittle, you know? So I sort of haven’t. I haven’t talked to them. I presumed he’d tell them, I guess, but they haven’t called me in a panic. I guess I’ll just tell them? And then they’ll just think I fucked up another thing? Well, they’re not wrong.”

He’s a fool to ask, but Kent can’t help it. “What happened?”

“I don’t know.” Jack swallows. “Don’t talk about it.”

“Hey.” Kent is trying to be very quiet, like it might soften the blow somewhat, make him seem more earnest. He really hopes it works: “Show me some pictures of your kid?”

“Her name is Greer.” Jack reaches over, retrieves his phone.

Kent knew that, somehow. “That’s a cool name,” he says, because what do you tell a guy who ate your jizz twice in the past 24 hours?

“Bittle picked it,” Jack explains, “from a Southern baby names website.”

“I bet you don’t meet many Greers.”

“I don’t. Lots of Jacks out there, eh? No other Bitties, though.”

“Isn’t that a hockey nickname?”

“His real name’s Eric.”

Kent must have known that. “That’s more common than ‘Bitty,’ anyway.”

Then it’s quiet again—awkward.

Jack’s camera roll is—well, it’s not all pictures of his baby. He thumbs through some recent ones: from last night, from what must have been his hotel room, from his flight coming in over the Strip. Beyond that, the landscape of his album is unfamiliar; lots of grays and earth tones, like he’s been primarily taking pictures while squatting over sidewalk grates. Maybe he does, for all Kent knows.

Then the overall blur of his scrolling shifts: no more grays. Everything is green and gingham and blonde. Jack presses his thumb into a picture, and it fills the screen: there she is, a little baby in a pinafore and pigtails, smashing her fists into a stack of pancakes.

“She’s about fifteen months.” Jack says it like he’s sighing.

“She looks happy,” Kent tries.

“I think she is. From what I’m told. Not so much when I’m around.”

“I don’t know, did you take this picture? She seems happy here.”

“That’s from when I was in Georgia last month. Bittle made pancakes.”

“Well, who wouldn’t be happy about pancakes?”

“Eugh, he always makes pancakes.” Jack sounds bitter. “He makes pancakes and I’m flying around the country getting my ass beat.”

“Clawing your way to the conference finals with an expansion team is pretty good, Zimms. I saw some of that LA series—they knocked us out first, I mean, fuck the Kings. You really clawed back. This season was pretty brutal for you? I saw that hit, or at least, the replays.” Something dawns on Kent. “You do deserve that Masterton, you know? If I got clonked on the head like that I wouldn’t be dragging my team into conference fucking finals.”

Jack pulls the phone away. He turns the screen off. “Thanks.”

“She’s really beautiful.” Kent means it. Even with the stupid pancakes, he can tell. Babies don’t usually leave a mark on him, but this one—Jack’s got a kid, Kent realizes, holy shit. “You should be proud?”

“Thanks.” Jack doesn’t look at him, just stares at the black screen in his hands. “I know she is. Thanks.”

“I’m not just saying it.”

“I know, thanks.”

“I know you, Jack. I mean, kind of, at least I did. You’re a good captain—you were when we were kids and I bet you are now, I mean, everybody says so? And I kinda know something about it, too. So it’s easy to imagine, like—like, you’re probably a pretty good dad?”

“Thanks.” Jack shakes his head. “I don’t think I’ve had that many opportunities to try. I always wanted to be the kind of father my dad was.”

Before he knows what he’s doing, Kent says, “Gone all the time?”

It’s remarkable to Kent, and encouraging, that Jack isn’t angry. His brow furrows, the way it will when he’s bothered by the synapse of an emotion registering. “Someone to emulate.”

“That’s a little circuitous.”

“Where was your dad, when you were growing up?”

“Dunno.” Jack knows this story: his mother handed him a Ziploc when he was eleven; it contained a set of dog tags on a ball chain. Even as a child, Kent never bothered to ask questions; his impossible mother would have made him regret it.

“I need to call mine,” Jack says. “I need to tell him Bittle left me, I guess. He’ll understand. It’s just every time I think about it I see him disappointed. My mom knows how to act fine but not him, you know? I hate that. It’s pity. I hate pity. I hate telling them things.”

“Maybe it’s compassion.”

“No, it’s like the Masterton—it’s just pity.”

“Nobody’s pitying anyone with two Cups.”

Jack is quiet. He’s not looking at Kent, or seemingly at anything.

“What’s you favorite thing about her?” Kent knows this is a stab, a bold move. It’s unlike him. What the teams he’s beaten seem to think about him is that he’s a risky player: reckless, daring. When commentators talk about him—when websites run stories about him—when people @ him—this is the story they tell each other about what kind of hockey player Kent Parson is, and therefore, what kind of person he is, too. Even if they don’t know him, even if they never think about the parts of himself a player has to leave in the locker room to so much as get out onto the ice. Kent does not think of himself as bold, or risky, or reckless, however; he is a cog in a machine that expects every part to function properly. They give out fucking awards ro players for beating themselves into submission and going back to functioning properly. Kent does not take risks. He is not reckless. What he _is_ is a player who sees sureties no one else in the rink can. He is not more reckless; he is better at creating plays. If some of these plays seem reckless, well, who cares? Who cares, so long as he wins?

The most reckless stuff about him has always been his shit with Jack. Long ago and half a continent away, he let a taller, fatter, angrier boy turn him into a closet case when he just wanted to be private. Looking at Jack now, with his slumped shoulders and his mask of still detachment, Kent wonders if Jack even heard the question, or if he plans to respond.

Why’d he go down that hallway? Why’d he drag Jack back here? His life is fine as it is. He doesn’t need this. Maybe you want this? he asks himself, silently. No, I don’t, I’m done with this shit, I just want to simmer alone in my penthouse with my old cat and my abdominal muscles. I don’t have to think about what I want until I’m retired and that’s like, what, four years from now? Five? I don’t have to want things for five years; that seems like a good amount of time to just keep existing.

Apparently, Jack heard, because he does manage to respond, “She reminds me of Bittle.”

Reflexively, Kent says, “I’m sorry,” and he is, just waiting for Jack to erupt at him.

But Jack doesn’t. “I have a flight at, euh, two-something. I need to check out of my hotel.”

“Do you need a ride to the airport?” Kent asks, like this is a normal situation and not a clumsy hookup.

“I can get a car. Should probably eat something too, eh?”

“Yes, probably,” Kent agrees, not quite sure what he’s feeling—disappointment? The past eighteen hours have just been a wild, sexy letdown.

“Can I use your shower?”

“Oh, yeah.”

“Thanks.” Jack keeps thanking him, like it’s a problem for Kent, or even passingly inconvenient, to acquiesce to a request for a shower. “What’s your phone number?”

That’s surprising. “It’s the same.”

Jack waits a moment before saying, “As?”

“It was in juniors?”

“I don’t—”

“One, three-one-five—”

Not to Kent in particular, but more into his general direction, Jack thrusts his phone, not bothering to look at it. “Here,” he says, “just put it in.”

Kent’s mouth is dry. “You have to unlock it.”

“Right.” After he does, he says, “I’m gonna shower.” He leaves it, unlocked, sitting open on the bed.

This is a test, Kent would think, snatching it—were Jack the type to try that sort of thing; were Jack cruel in this precise way. No, Jack’s cruelty has never been clever enough to dig into a person just to cause that person pain. The malice Jack wields, or has wielded, is all about Jack: Jack’s hockey, his body, his attention, his conveniences. To which of Jack’s overarching goals would it be in service to let Kent stumble into bitter knowledge while putting his digits in Jack’s cell phone? Of course, it’s a stupid Samsung, much larger than any phone Kent would bother to carry around. No matter how much you live in your phone, it shouldn’t be big enough to serve canapes off of.

By some miracle, Kent manages to enter his number, and takes only a few moments to angst over what he should label himself, as a contact. “Kent Parson” seems neutral enough. He turns the screen off, sets the phone aside.

As some phones are wont to do, Jack’s flickers back to life a few seconds later. The air conditioner churning and showerfall in the background, Kent leans over; he can’t help it. The skin of his thighs feels cold, clammy against his abs. He taps a button, hoping this will keep the screen on, if locked, so he can study it for longer. It’s some kind of self-injury, but he has to.

He saw the baby before—Greer, he tells himself—but she’s an infant here, a newborn. Swaddled. They must be at home; no hospital has a sofa (linen? brushed cotton? It’s chintzy) with a framed hockey jersey on the wall behind it. The jersey’s cut off at the top of the screen, so he can’t tell whose it is, but he knows that NHL tag on the bottom, and he just—he just knows it’s Jack’s. Jack sits next to Bittle, their knees touching, Jack in runners and a college T-shirt, of course, an “S” and an “AL” and part of the word “association” legible across his tits, okay, makes sense. Bittle’s in, oh god, turquoise gingham. He truly seems to love gingham. It’s probably a Southern thing, Kent thinks; his time in the South has been limited to playing hockey there. Kent realizes, oh my god, this was only last year.

Because fate is cruel—or because, in fact, Jack is?—the phone trembles in Kent’s hand with a message—from, oh god, _Bits_ , heart-pie-hockey stick:

_That’s great! Do whatever (whoever?) you want. Enjoy yourself._

And then:

_Just have fun, be safe._

_We have so many blueberries I made smoothies this morning (it’s like high 90s here, I’d say get ready but I imagine it’s hotter in Vegas?) and your girl made a big mess—I’ll go through my pictures and send some cute ones for the plane._

_Sorry about the award._

The last one has a little frowny face appended.

Kent pushes the phone away. He suddenly wants to go find his cat.

* * *

Kent gets a banana out of the pantry and takes it to the living room windows, which are always streaked with grease from where Purrs basks and stares down on the city during the day. There is not much, Kent admits, for a cat to really look at. Sometimes a bird will land on the balcony off the dining room, so that seems to garner some interest. When Kent sits, the cat rolls onto his stomach and looks up, batting at the segment of peel that’s nearest to his face. When the cleaners come later they’ll wipe down the glass, but the cat is just going to get it streaky again. Kent grew up in a cat house and he hates that it bothers him.

He stares out the window, letting Purrs lick banana from his fingers, until Jack is done showering and back in his suit. Kent is still in his underwear. It took him several years of living with these dramatic, sexy windows to comprehend that people really can’t see into them, so he might as well be naked if he wants. If someone has a telescoping lens and they want buff pictures of Kent’s fucking thighs, by all means, go to the trouble. Nobody cares enough about hockey to do that.

“You sure you don’t want a lift to your hotel?” Kent gets up, still clutching the empty banana peel. “Uh, do you want, like, a banana? For the road?”

“Sure. Well, I’ll take a banana. I already got a car.”

“Okay. Yeah. You want two bananas?”

“Sure.” When Kent hands them over, at the front door, Jack says, “Thanks.” He is so beautiful, Kent thinks, even with his limp haircut and his sad eyes and the ghosts of stitched-up gashes done quickly by vaunted team physicians. It doesn’t even matter that he’s in a rumpled navy suit and holding two goddamn bananas.

“I’ll text you,” Jack says. “If that’s okay?”

“Why wouldn’t it be okay?”

It’s about eighteen years too late, Kent thinks, but it’s certainly okay.

* * *

When Kent goes to find his pants on the bedroom floor so he can stuff them into his dry cleaning, the phone he pulls from his pocket bursts to life with dozens of notifications.

It can’t have been five minutes, but the most recent is a text from Jack.

**Author's Note:**

> please imagine that a week and a half after this, Bitty posts a vlog titled "MY PERSONAL LIFE (the full story)" which is 21 minutes and 49 seconds of him rambling about why he will not share the details of his personal life on YouTube.
> 
> If you're curious what happens to Jack and Kent after this, I have also written a fic about that: [portrait of a julio-claudian man](https://archiveofourown.org/works/12840339/chapters/29318421)
> 
> Finally, this is truly nuts, but I've been making a podcast called [Check Displeased ](https://checkdispleased.tumblr.com/)with Tomato. We're rereading the comic and analyzing as we go. Give it a shot?


End file.
